Shuttle Conveyor

Provenance

Camera: NIKON D810
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Settings: 14mm · f/8.0 · 1s · ISO 100
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm

A shuttle conveyor at Morwell Power Station and Briquette Factories that fed two separate slot bunkers below, one for the power station and one for the briquette factory. Each process required a different grade of coal, so only one grade could be delivered from the conveyor end at a time. Metal grating walkways and steel beams run across multiple levels, with a fire hose reel on a mid-ground column.

Edition

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In situ

01 PROVENANCE

Print datasheet

Title: Shuttle Conveyor
Series: Morwell Power Station
Catalogue: MPS-023
Process: Giclée
Captured: 30 March 2017
Camera: NIKON D810
Lens: 14.0-24.0 mm f/2.8
Aperture: f/8.0
Shutter: 1s s
ISO: 100
Focal length: 14 mm
Paper: Ilford Galerie Smooth Cotton Rag 310 gsm
Paper size: 290 × 200 mm
Location: Morwell, Victoria, Australia
Authenticity: C2PA verified provenance →
Recognised by: Highly Commended in Multimedia at the 2016 National Trust of Australia (NSW) Heritage Awards

02 LOCATION

Morwell, Victoria, Australia

Map · Mapbox · OpenStreetMap

03 THE STORY

About this print

The shuttle conveyor runs along the right of the frame at Morwell Power Station and Briquette Factories, feeding two separate slot bunkers below, one serving the power station and the other the briquette factory. Only one grade of coal could be delivered from the conveyor end at any given time, as each process required a different grade. Metal grating walkways and intersecting steel beams run across multiple levels. A fire hose reel is mounted on a mid-ground column, and large windows draw light into the upper levels from beyond the structure. The space is open and vertical, levels stacked above and below the conveyor line.

The site combined power generation and briquette production within a single interconnected facility, coal conveyed in from the west and distributed to either the power station or the briquette factories, with electricity or briquettes leaving from the eastern side. The dredgers and conveyors were Australian-built, to a Yallourn-derived design, while the German supply chain was the briquette presses only. The coal conveyor from the open cut to the briquette works had been designed in 1948 as the longest of its kind in Australia at the time, over 4,000 feet, about three-quarters of a mile. Brett photographed the shuttle conveyor on 30 March 2017, in the closed briquette factory before the demolition program began.

04 FROM THE FIELD NOTES

A steel grating walkway runs alongside a heavy conveyor system deep inside the plant. Rubber belt rollers sit idle in their cradles, red-painted tension springs still compressed. Steel handrails line the narrow passage. Overhead, I-beams and cross-bracing climb toward corrugated cladding where pale light filters through industrial windows. The air feels dense with coal dust and grease. Everything is grey and brown, metal on metal on concrete.

Brett Patman

The series

Morwell Power Station

1949-2014 · 79 photographs

The State Electricity Commission of Victoria built Morwell as the centrepiece of its postwar plan to sever Victoria's reliance on black coal from New South Wales. Construction ran from 1949 to 1959; electricity production commenced in December 1958 and the first commercial briquettes followed in December 1959. With the demolition of Old Yallourn between 1995 and 1999, Morwell became the earliest surviving large-scale Victorian state-grid power station, registered on the Victorian Heritage Register as H2377 on 1 March 2018.

View all in this series →

05 SIZE GUIDE

Print sizes

The anatomy view shows what this finish is as a physical object: paper margin, mat band, frame depth, acrylic profile. The comparison strip shows how each size sits relative to the others at true scale. Click a size or a finish to update both.